Holding Hands
by Slump
Summary: Sakura treating Sasuke after the ten-tail battle. SasuSaku Month. Ya!


Sakura limped forward, concentrating on each step taken. Her breath ragged, hesitating to fill her punctured lung with air. Each inhale was like swallowing a dagger. In each arm she carried her teammates, both broken and dripping blood from their wounds. Her fingers struggled to grip tighter as she felt Naruto start to slowly slip from her grasp. As she tried to adjust her hold, one of her legs suddenly gave out, forcing her to kneel against the ground. She bit back a scream and instead bit her lip, making a thin dark line of blood fall from her chin. Sakura had felt it shift beneath her skin from the weight of her steps, it was only a matter of a time before her kneecap gave out.

For a few seconds, she stayed where she was, trying to catch her breath. 'I can't go on much longer,' Sakura thought.

She managed to find a large tree with the trunk an acceptable size to fit both her teammates and herself inside. Sakura fisted her dirty fingers and collected the minute chakra left inside of her. She lightly tapped the middle of the tree and it punctured immediately. Digging around for her dagger she started to carve out the bark and the wood inside, like scooping out the goop inside a pumpkin.

By the time she was finished, it was drizzling and the sun behind the clouds had left along with its light. Grabbing both of her friends by the arm, Sakura pulled them inside the shelter she had made. Unfortunately the trunk of the tree was not long enough to completely fit them, so her teammates' feet were poking out in the rain.

Sakura had no time to rest and relax. She immediately went to work on patching them up, forcing herself to forget about her pain.

* * *

His eyelids flew open and his sharingan (?) immediately adorned his eyes. He attempted to sit up, but a hand was suddenly against his bandaged chest. He flinched at the contact and recoiled away from it. The man looked up and stilled once he saw her face. It was Sakura's and she was half asleep and looked as if she was about to fall over. He swatted her bloody fingers away, but froze because the pain in his stomach was intense.

"Lay down, Sasuke!" He heard her yell. "You're ruining my work."

With a scowl now etched across his frightening pale face, he complied. "Where am I?" He struggled to say, his voice giving out as he finished. He watched her as she sat back down next to her medical equipment. Sasuke eyed the bowl of blood and the few scattered syringes with slight interest.

Sakura tried not to wince as she moved her legs into her previous sitting position. Having Sasuke move unexpectedly like that made her react without thinking and force her to move so that she was being supported by her dislocated knee. She sighed quietly, and deliberately ignored his question. "I need to re-adjust the organs in your stomach, Sasuke." Sakura was just about to use her scalpel to gently slice his stomach open a bit and quickly move his organs back into place, but he had woken up just as she put the tip of her knife against his skin.

His eyebrows furrowed in displeasure and his eyes bore into his teammate's. He then averted his gaze to the ceiling, recalling his battle against the ten-tails. He remembered his final breaths as he laid along the rubble and feeling the light within his body begin to blow out. 'I should be dead,' he thought to himself.

"Sasuke," she said, trying to get his attention.

He returned his stare at her, his red eyes still gleaming.

"I'm going to do it now. This is going to hurt," Sakura warned him, her hand steady with scalpel firmly gripped between her fingers.

"Just do it."

She hesitated before casting a glance at the man beneath her fingers. "Sasuke," she paused, "are you sure you want to be awake ... Let me-"

"No," Sasuke's voice was stern. "I will not die here."

He felt the pain, a worse pain than the ten-tails hitting him with his energy beam. His insides were literally being torn and ripped apart. He reached out with his hands and grabbed the nearest thing; Sakura's hand. She startled, but didn't stop the procedure. Sasuke screamed so loudly that his voice gave out and all was left was his mouth gaping open. Sakura felt tears slide down her cheeks, but still she continued on. She managed to put his organs back where they were supposed to be and seal up the wound with just one hand. The other was firmly held by Sasuke, who had passed out.


End file.
